


Natasha's Story (as Told to Other Assorted Avengers)

by FannyT



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Origins, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4811219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FannyT/pseuds/FannyT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Everyone knows the story they need to know.</i>
</p><p>Natasha doesn't hide her past, exactly. It's just that if anyone ever started thinking about it, they might realise that everyone she tells gets their own version of her story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natasha's Story (as Told to Other Assorted Avengers)

**The Soldier**

Natasha had always been aware of Steve watching her. He, more than any of her fellow Avengers, had always been, if not openly suspicious, then on his guard. She’d have thought that would change after they collaborated to take down HYDRA—they'd had a whole conversation about having one another's back and everything—but in some ways, his watchfulness even increased. 

Obviously, working with a team leader who didn’t actually trust her was eventually going to become an issue, which was why she broke into his home one night and was waiting with a six-pack of beer when he got home from his jog. 

You know, as a trust-building exercise. 

Steve, to his credit, hardly blinked. “The window?” he asked. 

“The front door,” she replied. “Abysmal security on this place. You’ve been shot at in your home before, Steve; get it together.”

He laughed at that. “I guess I just like company. I need to take a shower; make yourself at home.”

She sat quite still while he was gone, listening to the shower run. She had no wish to prowl around looking at his books or photographs or whatever it was people did when they were left alone in someone’s apartment. She knew that it was supposedly welcome, but it felt too much like gathering intel. Besides, she thought she already knew what she would find. Steve was, in some ways, a person who was very easy to anticipate, and he was also rather sweetly sentimental in a way he rarely showed around the Avengers. She had already noticed the two aged portrait photos placed in the hall, just inside the front door, where they would be the first and last thing he saw as he entered and left. 

“Found all my secrets?” Steve asked, coming back out and taking the armchair across from her. Natasha smiled thinly. He was joking, but what people joked about was often the very best way to find out their worries. 

“I think we need to talk,” she said. 

“Really?” Steve opened a beer, not looking at her. “That sounds serious. About what?”

“You know I’m not actually thirty,” she said, barrelling straight into it. She saw him grow still, and continued, “Whenever you’ve seen my birth year, you’ve always reacted weirdly. I know you’re suspicious of me. So I thought it was time for cards on the table.” She sighed. “I was born in the forties.”

Steve leaned back, staring at her, and then he suddenly smiled, his whole stance loosening up. “I _thought_ so,” he said. “I thought I was mad, but I thought so. It didn’t make sense.”

Strangely, she felt a little offended by that. “You’re the first one who’s caught on,” she said. 

He waved his hands, conciliatory. “Oh, no, it’s not obvious at all. That was the problem. I couldn’t figure out if I was just making a big deal out of nothing—but I just couldn’t shake the feeling.”

Natasha was fascinated. “How did you know?” 

Steve shrugged. “It was such little things,” he said. “The way you refer to things sometimes. Most young people don’t talk about the Eastern Front the same way you do. You said Leningrad instead of St Petersburg once—but we were talking about an incident in -68, so I thought you might just have been trying to be historically accurate. But you know, it made me wonder. Also, you know so much about modern history. You lived through it, I suppose.” 

“Yes.” It was surprisingly liberating, being able to come clean. She didn’t usually have a problem with keeping secrets, but she had to admit it would be a relief to be able to share experiences with the other member of her team living out of their own time. And it was also intriguing, realising how much Steve noticed. “I wasn’t put on ice. They did that to some assets as well, but I was allowed to live through it all. I’ve seen the world change a lot.”

“Assets?” Steve said, and she answered the rest of his question as well. 

“After you, a lot of people tried to replicate the serum. Some attempts were not successful. Others were—partially, at least. I was trained in a Russian facility called the Red Room, and they gave me their version.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t like yours exactly. I was trained for different things. Spying. Assassination. They were going for speed and resilience. But I didn’t expect the longevity. That was—” she curled her lip, “a bonus.”

Steve was staring at her. “Why did you do it?” 

She looked away. “They told me we were at war,” she said. “I was young and stupid. You can be fooled into doing a lot of things for your country, when you’re young and stupid. I think you know that.”

He nodded solemnly, toying with the label of his beer. She wondered if she ought to tell him about Bucky. Steve had followed him into battle, expecting a few years of life as a soldier and then a return to normalcy. It had ended quite differently for both of them. 

Steve might already be thinking about it, of course. The reference to assets on ice ought to have started the cogs turning. Then again, he wasn’t asking, and talking about Bucky’s full story would open a whole other can of worms. If she was going for trust-building, she should probably hold off on that one for a bit longer. 

“Do you know what your life span is now?” Steve asked eventually, after a thoughtful pause.

She smiled at that. “No. I really couldn’t tell you. I suppose that’s a question that keeps you up sometimes, too.”

He shrugged again, but smiled, too. “There was a lot I was never told. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Like most people, of course.”

“I think we might both have to watch the world change a lot more before we’re done,” she said. 

“I think so, too. And hopefully for the better.”

She rolled her eyes and reached for another beer. “Steve Rogers, you’re such an incurable optimist,” she said, and he grinned at her. 

 

**The Dancer**

“So, is it true?” Tony asked her one night when they were all gathered for drinks in the Avengers Tower. They were celebrating a successful mission in Brussels, and also that Clint had managed not to die yet again, despite what had at the time seemed like overwhelming odds to the contrary. Natasha was making him “well done”-Margaritas. 

“Yes,” she replied, “I like vodka as much as the next Russian, but whoever told you it’s the base for Margarita was lying.”

Tony laughed shortly, then shrugged. “Not what I meant, although I will have a talk with Happy.”

“In that case, Tony, I have no idea what you’re talking about. We have discussed how other people can’t see into your head, right?”

“Is it true about the modelling in Japan?” Tony asked, leaning closer conspiratorially. “Because I did some research when you worked for me as Natalie Rushman—”

“I bet you did.”

“—and your cover was _excellent_.”

“I’m going to tell on you to Pepper.”

“The good thing about being engaged to my long-time assistant,” Tony said breezily, “is that she knows all of my dirty secrets. Before you ask: yes, that is also the bad thing about being engaged to my long-time assistant. But my point is that for being a twenty-something-something, you have a truly impressive resume. Especially when I take all of your aliases into account.”

Behind all his glitzy playboy antics, Natasha reflected, Tony was rather clever. 

“How much do you know?” she asked. 

“Only that your record is so sealed even I can’t get into it. That peaked my interest.” Natasha smiled at that, and he continued, “And I also learned your code name has been around a lot longer than you have.”

Natasha hesitated for a moment, then decided that since Steve already knew, why not. “Well, yes and no,” she said. 

Tony looked _ridiculously_ excited. 

“Is it really you?” he asked. “All of the Black Widow ops? Because, I mean, firstly, how does that even work, and secondly, the one in Svalbard in 1972 I simply don’t believe.”

Natasha smiled. “The Black Widow code name has been used by several individuals. Of course, I can’t tell you who, and I can’t tell you which ops were actually done by me. But I have been using the name since 1964.”

“This is the most amazing thing ever,” Tony said gleefully. “And just for reference, that means that this tops Steve finding Twitter. I can’t even begin to—how do you even look like that?” He waved a hand in her general direction. “I am even less convinced now that this is your natural hair colour.”

“It’s all down to _fantastic_ plastic surgery,” Natasha said, straight-faced, then smiled. “I’m a bit augmented, I guess you could say. A bit like Steve, or maybe a little bit like Bruce. Only with better hair, of course.”

“Hey, I will tell them you said that,” Tony warned. He was looking at her with his science face, which was both interesting and a bit creepy. “So you’re—what? An experiment?”

“A steroid junkie would be closer,” she said. Self-deprecation was Tony’s stock in trade, after all. She found herself mirroring him more and more these days, because it was a coping technique that worked well for most members of their little team of weirdos. “Would you believe I started in the cut-throat world of ballet?”

Tony made another gleeful face. “This just gets better and better. Please wear a tutu for our next mission.”

“Maybe if we make it a team outfit. I’ve always wondered how the Hulk would look in tulle.” 

“Oh my god. You can’t just spring an image on a guy like that without warning,” Tony said, but he was grinning. 

“Anyway, it started with painkillers,” Natasha said. “I was under a lot of pressure to stay in shape and in working form. It went south fast. Before long, I was taking Tramadol just to get through basic training sessions. When you’re in that spiral, it’s hard to get out—you just push your body further and further, because you’re medicating away all the signals that tell you to stop. What pushed me over the edge was a sprained ankle at the wrong time, just before a big role. My trainers were desperate. They were approached with a quick-fix solution.” She smiled thinly. “They got a bit more than they bargained for. And me as well, of course.”

She turned back to her Margaritas. “I was recruited quickly after that. The Black Widow programme were the ones who had fixed me, and now they owned me—that was the way it was put to me. I didn’t have much to stay for, anyway... Ballet seemed so petty and distant. Those first years were strange, and I guess I just craved something stable. My body was changing and everything was too chaotic to deal with. They gave me routine.”

She looked up at him, and saw him struggling with what to say. She gave him an easy way out. “OK, you’re still thinking about the tutus, aren’t you?”

He laughed shortly. “Can you blame me? I’m wondering if there is enough tulle in New York to fit the Hulk. And do you think green or purple? Because either one is equally horrifying, in my mind.”

“I think,” Natasha said deliberately, lifting up two glasses, “that it would be a shame for us to go through all that trouble to save Clint yesterday, only to have him die from lack of alcohol. I should bring this to him.”

Tony grinned at her, then looked suddenly serious. 

“Those people that did this to you,” he said, “are they still active? Because we’d all go with you, if you wanted to return with some extra firepower.”

She smiled at that. It was a sweet, if somewhat homicidal, offer. “Been there, done that,” she said. “They won’t be turning out any more Black Widows now. But thank you.”

He nodded, then stood aside to let her pass him. 

“How about a _plié_ to tie a bow around this conversation?” he asked, and she extended a middle finger gracefully before walking on. 

 

**The Unwilling**

The sickbay smelt like disinfectant and sweat. Natasha held her breath and closed her eyes for a second, steeling herself. The smell was all too familiar. These days she hardly ever spent time in here for herself, but she sat at Clint’s side much more often than she would have liked. They all joked about it, calling him the team mascot and a living piñata and other charming nicknames, but every time they did, Natasha felt her stomach squeeze with worry. She worried that one day soon, they wouldn’t be able to joke any more. 

This time, it had been worse than usual. As she entered, Clint was still sleeping heavily under sedation, and she’d have to wait to give him the lecture about how he was supposed to be a _sniper_ , not throw himself into the middle of a fight with an augmented Kree warrior. Anyway, she wasn’t primarily here for him, this time. 

Bruce was sitting on the other cot in the sickbay, hunched over as though he was trying to disappear into himself. His right arm was bandaged and an ugly wreath of bruises covered his bare chest, and he was looking that special kind of empty miserable that was Bruce’s stock in trade. It hadn’t been a good Hulk outing. He’d almost attacked a group of civilians, only steered away at the last second by the combined efforts of Thor and Iron Man, and the lullaby takedown had failed spectacularly on the first try—Bruce had only just returned when the Hulk broke through again, and in the process Bruce’s arm had been broken. That hadn’t bothered the Hulk, who had raged on for another quarter of an hour in an abandoned industrial site before calming down enough to be put to sleep. 

Natasha always wondered how much of Bruce remained when the Hulk took over. Sometimes it seemed that Bruce was right there, just under the surface, and sometimes it was as though the Hulk was a whole other person. 

They’d had bad Hulk days before, but this time, with Bruce sustaining injuries himself, seemed as though it might be critical. Fury was worried that Bruce might finally give up on this whole enterprise. Natasha had been sent to intervene. 

“Hey,” she said softly, and Bruce looked up her dully. “How are you?”

He shrugged, looking away. “I’m sharing a body with a monster. I’m great.”

Natasha winced. That wasn’t a promising start.

“We got the guy, though,” she pointed out. “You were a big part of that.”

“ _He_ was,” Bruce corrected, and Natasha sighed inwardly. It was never good when Bruce dissociated himself completely from the Hulk. “And I’m not even sure you could say that.”

“You’re an important part of this team, both of you,” Natasha began, but he looked up at her again, jaw clenched tightly. 

“He isn’t a part of this team,” he said. “He made that extremely clear today. He cares nothing about the mission, about the people we’re trying to save, not even about the body he’s living in. He’s a monster. He only wants to hurt things.”

“You know that’s not true. He’s never hurt any of us, or a civilian. It’s just—he can get a little lost.”

Bruce snorted. “What do you want me to say, Natasha? Has Fury sent his sock puppet here to make sure I’m not going to bail out on you? Well, I’m not making any promises. I’m tired. I hate this. You all _wanted_ to become superheroes, but I never asked for any of this.”

Natasha crossed her arms, drawing her breath in through her nose. The kind approach obviously wasn’t working here. Besides, she felt annoyed. Bruce had a hard time of it, yes, but this relentless self-pity grated on her nerves. It wasn’t as though someone had _forced_ him to do Gamma Ray experiments.

“I didn’t choose this either, you know,” she said coolly. “How many little girls do you think dream of becoming an assassin when they grow up?” 

There was a long pause, and then he looked at her, suddenly aghast. “You told me once you started young.”

“Yes, and if you thought that was by choice, you’re a lot stupider than I thought.” 

He shook his head. “I didn’t—I never reflected over it.” He frowned at her. “What happened to you?”

She shrugged, then nodded her head towards his cot, asking for permission. He nodded, and she sat down next to him, lowering her voice. “Nothing worse than what many street kids went through. Things happened. I fell into a life of petty crime, which turned into big crime. I was taught to steal, and then to spy. Eventually I was taught to kill. It didn’t seem too bad at the time.”

He was listening to her now, and she thought she might just be able to salvage this persuasion attempt after all. She made her voice gentler, soothing. “I can’t change the past. But I’ve found a way to use the skills that life gave me in order to make up for it. I think you can, too. You were dealt a rough hand. But if you want, I think you can move forward from that with us.”

Bruce sat in silence for some time. “I’m sorry,” he said eventually. “I’ve been too wrapped up in myself for too long. I sometimes forget that others have had troubles just as big as mine.”

He put his hand over hers, and she flinched. 

“Oh, you know, it’s not that bad,” she said, leaning away from him and trying to make the smile natural. She was suddenly aware of his body heat next to her, radiating out from his bare skin. “I’ve met some lovely people. Of course, I’ve killed most of them. Kidding!” she added quickly, when she saw his horrified expression. “Sorry, I was trying to lighten the atmosphere—I’ll—I’m going to go and see how Clint is doing.”

She stood up and walked quickly over to the other cot, trying to quell the impulse to look back at Bruce. Clint was still lying with his eyes closed, apparently asleep, but he was smiling. 

“You know,” he murmured quietly, “I always find it funny how you can seduce anyone you want when you’re on a mission, and still be so spectacularly awkward when you actually like someone.” 

She felt rather proud about not punching him in his stitches. 

 

**The Worthy**

Thor had been home in Asgard for a spell, and had brought back mead. They had all laughed at the idea of honey beer, which was how Thor had tried to describe it, and had decided to try out this wussy-sounding drink immediately. 

They weren’t laughing now. 

Clint had cracked first, weaving off to a hidden corner to call Laura and tell her how much he loved her. (Natasha had gone to bring him a pitcher of water, and from what she had heard, Laura hadn’t seemed too impressed.) Bruce had folded quickly after that, and was currently stretched out on the floor, murmuring fractured sentences about how he’d just come up with a great idea for a power problem in Tony’s suit. Unfortunately, Tony was no longer in any condition to be wowed, lying splayed out in the sofa with one arm over his eyes and occasionally muttering things like “no, you’d need to reroute the whole thing” or “it’s called palladium; I don't know what you were trying to say” or “please just shut up, Bruce”. And then there was Steve, who Natasha had on multiple occasions heard saying that thanks to his super soldier serum, he was no longer able to get drunk. Right now he was eating those words, and had a little while ago left Natasha and Thor to go get some fresh air out on the balcony. He was impressively mobile, even so.

So far, Natasha had felt quite well, but as she watched Thor watching her from across the table, she began to wonder if she wasn’t feeling the effects of the mead after all. She ought to have bowed out a long time ago. Usually, she always knew when to begin faking drunkenness—always late, because it was good to be able to use the way men were impressed by a woman who could hold her liquor, but not so late that people would start to wonder about her. This time, however, around the time when Steve’s speech had started slurring and Thor had begun to laugh in earnest about weakling mortals, her macho had kicked in. 

She was starting to realise that her judgement may have been slightly impaired. 

Thor refilled her glass, then topped up his own and raised it in a toast. 

“You have an impressive stomach, Natasha,” he said. “In fact, I would say your strength overall is truly something miraculous.”

Damn. She had really left herself open this time. 

“Oh, you,” she said, smiling at him over the rim of her glass. Perhaps she might get away with seeming not to understand the underlying question. “You do know how to make a girl feel special.”

“I have reflected over this before,” Thor went on. “Last week in the mine. The time you fell from that roof in Chigago. I have seen you shrug off blows that would have felled Clint.”

“That’s because Clint is a fragile little man.”

“Clint is a strong human who takes a beating better than most mortals I have met,” Thor said seriously. “I confess it is sometimes difficult for me, knowing how much your bodies can handle, but this much I know. And you are deflecting.”

She put her glass down. Really, damn. She’d gone through most of her life without anyone ever reflecting over her strength—always managing to steer their thoughts and expectations and portray herself as someone much less dangerous than she actually was. Apparently she was completely losing her touch. 

Or, of course, it might simply be that she was now part of a team. They had all had more time to see her in action, to compare her to other people, to realise just how strong she actually was. 

Things used to be so much simpler.

She sighed. “Fine. You know, don’t you.”

“I know nothing for certain. But I have suspected for some time that you are not only human,” Thor said, then looked stricken. “Forgive me, I do not wish to be insulting.”

“You're rather insightful, actually,” she said, giving him a shrug and a smile. “I don’t know how I should be classified. But I’m really rather a lot like Steve.”

“Only with a better head for drink,” Thor said, grinning, and that was promising. She grinned back. 

“That’s where being Russian comes in handy,” she said. “And I was strong before I was changed. I don’t know if that has something to do with it, but maybe. Steve was young, thin, asthmatic. He had heart and morals, but barely any training. For me it was different.”

“But you were given a serum?” Thor asked. “I was told there was none more in the world, after they created Steve.”

“There wasn’t,” Natasha admitted. “But Steve has bled on a lot of foreign agents through the years. It took a long time,” she briefly pondered if she ought to tell him how long exactly, but decided that since mortal lives all seemed so brief to Thor, her being closer to seventy than thirty probably meant little in the grand scheme of things, “but eventually some scientists in my home country managed to reverse-engineer the serum, or something similar to it. I’m not exactly like Steve. But close.”

“Are there many of you?” Thor asked, looking intrigued. “I confess I am surprised there are more people with this skillset in the world. I believed that Steve was unique. Your people call him a super hero, but if he is but one of many…”

“He was the first,” Natasha said. “And he became Captain America in a time when people needed a hero to keep their courage up. I became who I am in a much later time, when stealth was important. No one wanted to make trading cards with my face on it. I was selected to be a spy, after all.” 

She tapped her glass for a refill, and he obliged. “Also, there aren’t many of us, no. I was selected because I excelled in my training. The serum I was given was simply a way to further hone the skills I had already perfected. The same goes for the others from my programme—only the elite, those of us who had proven we could handle that kind of power, were taken to a further level. We were already gifted. We just received one more gift.”

“You talk of this as if it was past,” Thor said. “Your home country seems to be that no longer.”

Natasha was surprised that he didn't know this part of the story. She had told one version of it to Loki, after all. But maybe people simply talked less about her than she expected. “I defected,” she said. “As it turned out, the people I was working for were evil. Life can be funny that way. But you know, it all worked out in the end. Now I’m here.” 

He was looking at her strangely, searching. 

“My brother weaves illusions in much the same way you do,” he said eventually. “Layers on layers. I find it hard to see where one ends and another begins.”

Oh _shit_ , Natasha thought. It was easy to discount Thor, because his demeanour was usually one of such brash confidence that it was hard to peer beneath, but he was dangerously observant. She needed to remember that. And she was never going to drink mead again, that was for sure. 

She let herself yawn hugely. “Well, I have to admit I’m fuzzier than usual,” she said, smiling self-deprecatingly. “You are used to seeing me in control. But this damned thing,” she gestured a little wildly at her glass, almost knocking it over, “is too strong even for me.”

He grinned at her again. “Mortals,” he said. “Weaklings, all of you.”

“I would challenge that,” Natasha said, glad to have achieved exactly the reaction she’d been trying to provoke, “but I think I ought to check on Clint. Last time I saw him this drunk he decided it was a good time to label all his trick arrows. We spent all weekend afterwards trying to decipher what they were supposed to be.” She raised an eyebrow. “For example, it turned out that the one labelled “ZEEEEE” was the one that gives electric shocks. Don’t ask us how we discovered that.”

Thor laughed, leaning back in his chair. 

“Go. Save him from himself. And Natasha, I am pleased to have at least one friend I can share a bottle with in this group.”

“Glad you think so.”

“Next time, I might even bring the strong stuff.”

“Oh, piss off,” Natasha said, and Thor laughed uproariously again. 

 

**The Orphan**

After the battle with Ultron, there was little time for grief or rest. Steve was on some sort of a roll, setting up new Avengers quarters and coordinating with intelligence agents around the world. Natasha wasn’t entirely sure how she’d been roped into some kind of second-in-command for the new Avengers, but there she was. There was always something to do or fix and little to no alone time for any of them, so when Natasha managed to escape for an hour’s training session by herself one day only to be interrupted halfway through by the entrance of Wanda Maximoff, she was thoroughly annoyed. 

Wanda stopped halfway into the firing range, looking uncertain but still defiant. 

“Steve told me I could practise with the targets in here,” she said. 

“Be my guest,” Natasha said, holstering her guns and determining to go have a word with Steve immediately about some kind of roster for the training rooms. Or, you know, just some kind of _everyone leave Natasha alone for just one damn hour_ -time. Something like that. “I was leaving anyway.”

Wanda watched her as she walked towards the door. 

“I know that you don’t like me,” she said, just as Natasha was about to walk past her. Natasha gave her a cool look. 

“It’s not that I don’t like you,” she said. “I just don’t trust you quite yet.” She saw the girl’s offended expression, so she went on, “I trust very few people. The Avengers are part of those few. But I’m not sure yet if you’re here with us.”

“I’ve _fought_ with you,” Wanda said, her whole frame tight. “What do you need me to prove?”

“I don’t need you to prove anything,” Natasha said. “I just want to be certain you’ve made up your own mind.”

Wanda frowned at that, caught halfway between annoyance and surprise. Natasha sighed inwardly. She’d been intending to have this conversation with Wanda at some point anyway. Might as well be now. 

“It’s difficult to change loyalties,” she said. “I know what it’s like when you have something that gives you purpose. It can be hard to give that up. We can give you purpose, too. But you have to be sure where you want to be.”

“What do you know about it?” Wanda scoffed. Natasha shrugged. 

“I’ve been there. I’ve done a lot of things I regret, too. It can be hard, being without a family and alone in the world. If you find somewhere you can call home, you might not want to question that home too closely.”

Wanda’s hands clenched. “I _had_ a family,” she said, and her expression now was difficult to look at, even for Natasha. 

She knew she would need to keep an eye on Wanda. The girl had joined their side late in the game, and she had done it together with her brother. His death had the possibility to push her either way. She might just as easily decide that HYDRA had the right idea after all, and that would be devastating. Natasha had convinced Steve to hold off on granting Wanda full security clearances for a while, at least, but she still knew enough that a defection would seriously cripple the new Avengers organisation. They needed to keep Wanda with them. 

And Wanda would need to feel she was understood here, welcomed, not just valued for her skills. 

“You had your brother,” Natasha said. “I’ve been there, too.”

As she had hoped, that made Wanda intrigued. Her body relaxed, became less rigidly hostile, and she leant her head slightly to one side. “You have a brother?” 

“A sister,” Natasha said. “Not by blood, but close enough. We were raised in the same orphanage. I would have done anything for her.” She paused. “I did.”

She let the silence grow, and smiled inwardly when Wanda asked, “Where is she now?”

Natasha waited for a moment longer, then looked down. “She was picked for something called the Red Room. They trained assassins. I followed her there, because I wanted to protect her. But she didn’t survive.” She cleared her throat, then spoke quickly. “I’d gone there for her, but by the time she died, the Red Room was my home. They had my loyalty. It took me a long time to realise how undeserved that loyalty was. Now, the Avengers are my home instead. I think they’re more worthy of the name.”

She turned away, affecting a cool mask. Wanda was still raw—sharing too much too soon would only make her suspicious. 

“The Avengers can be your home,” she said over her shoulder. “You have to decide if you think we’re worth it, but if you do, we’ll be here for you.”

She started to walk away, but stopped when she heard Wanda ask, “What was her name? Your sister.”

Natasha didn’t hesitate. “Marina,” she said. 

It felt strange, using a real name from her past, but it was the first she could think of. She had been thinking a lot about Marina lately. 

And with any luck, Wanda would never ask her why Marina hadn’t survived the Red Room. 

 

**The Truth**

Even with the new roster of Avengers settling in to their duties and lightening the load, long stretches of downtime were rare these days. On the other hand, their work consisted mostly of short-term missions, and Natasha was no longer away from home months at a stretch. What with her face being blown all over mainstream media, her usefulness as a spy had its limits, and the deep cover missions had been replaced by strike ops, usually taking no more than a day or two. 

Still, she sometimes wondered why she had thought it was a good idea to adopt a cat. 

“She’s mine now,” Clint said, sitting in her sofa with Liho curled up in his lap. Liho was purring like a small factory, claws extended just enough to keep her fastened to Clint’s jeans. “I’m bringing her home and you’re never getting her back.”

“I seem to remember your wife is allergic,” Natasha said, dumping her overnight bag in one of the chairs. She’d been sent over to Oslo with Falcon for a last-minute op, and Clint had not for the first time been roped into cat-sitting. “Otherwise, sure. Take her. I don’t know why I got myself saddled with a cat.”

“You don’t mean that,” Clint said, and gently detached Liho from his jeans to bring her up to his face. She blinked lazily at him. “She doesn’t mean that. She wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

Natasha sat down next to him, rolling her eyes. “Take one night off without having to phone a friend?” she suggested, but she was smiling. “Has everything been good here?”

“A group of ninjas tried to break in and steal your TV. But I fought them off bravely.”

“Well done, you.”

“There has also been another piece about you on the news.” Clint’s expression hardened. “They brought up Pakistan.”

Natasha sighed. It was hard, having your secrets out there in the world. Taking down HYDRA had meant releasing some details of ops she’d rather have stayed buried, but it had been a small price to pay in the circumstances. She hadn’t expected the aftershocks to last this long, however. It had been years since they outed HYDRA, but with the recent upswing of the Avengers in the news and with her new role as some sort of co-captain, the media had been all too happy to paw through all the old files again for new scandals to peddle. 

“Which version of Pakistan?” she asked. “The one with you, or the one with the Punisher?”

“Punisher,” Clint said. “He must be happy to be the hero of a story for once.” He hesitated for a moment. “Is there any point in releasing how it actually went down?”

Natasha shook her head. “The reports are muddled for a reason.” 

“Will anyone ever know your full story?” 

She looked at him, surprised. “You don’t think you do?”

Clint smiled, looking down at Liho, once again curled up in his lap. “I know I’m privileged to know a lot about you, but I’m not so naïve as to think I know everything. Or that everything you’ve told me is true, either.”

“And you’re fine with that?”

“Of course,” he said, and it was so simple and without hesitation that she felt her throat constrict for a moment. “I know who you are. And I know what I need to know about you. I think that’s all anyone can ever ask for, really.”

She leaned back. “Everyone knows the story they need to know. It’s easier that way.”

“And the real story stays with you.”

She smiled, and reached out to rub Liho’s ears. “Well… I might tell the cat.”

“Better not. I’ve bugged her collar.”

Natasha laughed. 

“You really can’t trust anyone in this world,” she said, and Clint smiled at her. 

 

**THE END**


End file.
